"Frank," the President said to the Chief of the Detail,
"see what's going on--"
The big-screen television came on.
The President and his Detail whirled around.
"What the fuck ..." somebody said.
On the screen, large and bold, was the bright yellow insignia
of the Emergency Broadcast System--the special all
spectrum broadcast network that was capable of cutting off
regular broadcasting in the event of a national emergency.
Then, abruptly, the BBS symbol disappeared, and a face
appeared in its place.
"What the hell ..." this time it was the President who
spoke.
The face on the screen was that of a dead man.
It was the face of Lieutenant General Charles Samson
Russell, USAF, call-sign: "Caesar."
ON EVERY TELEVISION SCREEN IN AREA 7--AND, IT APPEARED,
every television in the United States--the round, heavy
browed face of Charles Russell began to speak.
"Mr. President. People of America. Welcome to Area 7.
My name is General Charles Russell, United States Air
Force. For too long, I have watched this country eat itself. I
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will do so no longer." His tone was measured, his Louisiana
accent thick.
"Our representatives at both federal and state levels are
incapable of genuine leadership. Our free press is no longer
the tool for controlling government that it was intended to
be. To every man who has ever fought or died for this country,
this state of affairs is a disgrace. It can no longer be allowed
to continue."
IN THE COMMON ROOM, THE PRESIDENT JUST STARED AT THE
big-screen television.
"And so I propose a challenge, Mr. President--both to
you and to the system you represent.
"Implanted on your heart is a radio device. It was attached
to the outer tissue of your cardiac muscle during an
operation on your left lung four years ago."
Frank Cutler spun to face the President, a look of horror
spreading across his face.
"I will initiate its signal now," Caesar said. He pressed
some buttons on a small red unit that he held in his hand.
The compact unit had a black stub antenna sticking out from
its top.
Frank Cutler pulled a debugging wand from his coat--a spectrum analyzer used to detect any signal-emitting device-- and waved it over the President's body.
Feet and legs ... okay.
Waist and stomach... okay.
Chest ...
The wand went crazy.
"MY CHALLENGE TO YOU, MR. PRESIDENT, IS SIMPLE." Russell's voice echoed throughout the underground base.
"As you well know, at every major airport in the United
States there are at least three hangars devoted to the storage
of United States Air Force bombers, fighters and ordnance.
"Right now, inside fourteen of those hangars, sit fourteen
Type-240 blast plasma warheads. The airports include
John F. Kennedy, Newark and La Guardia in New York,
Area 7 75
Dulles in Washington, O'Hare in Chicago, LAX in Los Angeles,
and airports in San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle,
Boston, Philadelphia and Detroit. Each plasma warhead, as
you know, has a blast radius of sixteen miles and a detonation
yield of ninety megatons. All are armed."
IN THE COMMON ROOM ON LEVEL 3, EVERYONE WAS SILENT.
"The only thing that will stop the detonation of these
warheads, Mr. President," Charles Russell said with a smile,
"is the continued beating of your heart."
russell went on.
"All the devices at the airports are patched in to a single
satellite in geosynchronous orbit above this base. That satellite,
Mr. President, emits a high-powered microwave signal
which is picked up and bounced back to it by the transmitter
placed on your heart.
"But the radio transmitter on your heart, once started, is
kinetically operated. If your heart should stop beating, the
transmitter will cease to operate, and the satellite's signal
will not be bounced back to it—in which case, the satellite
will instruct the bombs in the airports to detonate.
"Mr. President. If your heart should stop, America as
"You are the symbol of a bankrupt culture, sir: a politician,
a man who seeks power for power's sake, but, like the
people you represent, one who lives safe in the knowledge
that he will never ever be called upon to stand up and fight
for the system that gives him that power.
"Well, you have lived safely for too long, Mr. President.
Now you have been called to account. Now you have been
called to fight.
"I, on the other hand, am a warrior. I have spilled my
blood for this country. What blood have you spilled? What
sacrifices have you made? None. Coward.
"But like an honest patriot, I will give you and the system
you represent a final chance to prove your worth. For
the people of this country need proof. They need to see you
flounder—see you fall—see you sell them out to save your
Area 7 77
skin. They elected you to represent them. Now you shall do
that--literally. If you die, they die with you.
"This facility has been completely sealed. It is designed
to withstand the full force of a nuclear blast, so there is no
way out of it. Inside it with you is a fifty-man detachment of
the best ground force this country has to offer, the 7th Special
Operations Squadron. These men have orders to kill
you, Mr. President.
"With your Secret Service Detail, you will face them in
a fight to the death. Whoever wins, gets the country. Whoever
loses, dies.
"Of course, the American people must be kept apprised
of the score in this challenge," Caesar said. "Therefore,
every hour on the hour, I shall address them via the Emergency
Broadcast System and give them an update on the
pursuit."
The President looked up at the nearest security camera.
"This is ridiculous! You couldn't possibly have put a--"
"Jeremiah K. Woolf, Mr. President," Caesar Russell
said from the TV screen. The President immediately fell
silent.
No one else spoke.
"I will assume from your silence that you have seen the
FBI file."
Of course the President had seen the file--the peculiarities
of the ex-senator's death had demanded it.
At the exact moment that Jeremiah Woolf had died in
Alaska, his home in Washington, D.C., had exploded. No
culprit--for either incident--had ever been found. It was a
coincidence too bizarre to ignore, but in the absence of any
evidence to explain it, to the mass media it had remained
simply that, a tragic coincidence.
As the President knew, however, one particular aspect
of the ex-senator's death had never been made public:
namely, the elevated levels of red blood cell production in
his bloodstream, plus extremely low alveolar and arterial
; phosphate pressures. All of these symptoms indicated a
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prolonged period of hyperventilation before Woolf had been
shot--a period during which the ex-senator had experienced
a heightened state of "fight or flight" physiology.
In other words, the ex-senator had been running from
someone when he'd been shot. He had been hunted.
And now it made sense.
Woolf had been implanted with a transmitter ...
... and then in Alaska he had been hunted and shot,
and when, finally, his heart had stopped, his home on the
other side of the country had been destroyed.
Caesar Russell's voice invaded his thoughts. "Former
Senator Woolf's unexpected retirement from government
left me with an extra transmitting device. And so he became
a guinea pig, a test run. A test run for today."
The President exchanged a look with Frank Cutler.
Caesar said, "Oh, and just in case you're harboring ambitions
of escaping this facility ..." He lifted an object into
view.
It was a stainless steel briefcase.
Warrant Officer Carl Webster's steel briefcase.
The case's handle still had the pair of handcuffs attached
to it--only now the open-ended cuff was no longer
attached to anything. It was splattered all over with blood.
It was the Football.
And it was open.
The President saw the briefcase's flat-glass palm-print
analyzer and keypad. The palm-print analyzer was an identification
feature programmed to recognize the President's
palm print, so that only he could activate--and deactivate--
America's thermonuclear arsenal.
Somehow, though, Russell had managed to falsify the
President's palm print and enter the arming codes. But how
could he have gotten a copy of the President's hand print?
"In addition to the transmitter on your heart, Mr. President,"
Russell said, "all the devices in the airports have been
networked to a recycling timer of exactly ninety minutes, as
is shown on the Football's display screen. Only the application
of your palm print to the analyzer--once every ninety
Area 7 79
minutes--will reset that timer and stop the plasma warheads
from going off, so don't think of leaving. The Football, for
your information, will be kept up here in the main hangar.
"This is a great day in the history of the nation, Mr.
President, a day of reckoning. Come the dawn of tomorrow,
the glorious Fourth of July, we shall see if we all awake in a
new, reborn America. Good luck, Mr. President, and may
God have mercy on your soul."
At that moment, as if right on cue, the main doors to the
common room burst open and a team of 7th Squadron commandos
--led by Major Kurt Logan and wearing their fearsome
ERG-6 gas masks--rushed into the room, their
devastating P-90 machine guns blazing.
The challenge had begun.
SECOND CONFRONTATION
3 July/ 0700 Hours
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
SPECIAL AREA (RESTRICTED) NO.7
0700 HOURS
GROUND LEVEL: Main Hangar
LEVEL 1: Hangar Bay
LEVEL 2: Hangar Bay
LEVEL 3: Living Quarters
LEVEL 4: Laboratories
LEVEL 5 gafinsflien
LEVEL 6: X-rail platform
THE MAIN HANGAR HAD BECOME A BATTLEFIELD.
Bullet holes raked the floor at Shane Schofield's feet as
he raced for the doorway to the northern glass-walled office.
He poked his head around the doorway: "Marines!
Scatter!"
But that was all he could say before the window next to
him shattered into a thousand fragments and he dived away,
crawling for the cover of the two Presidential helicopters
and their towing vehicles.
He looked back just in time to see a couple of full dress-uniformed
Marines burst out through the windows of
the office a moment before the small structure was hit by a
Predator shoulder-launched missile and its walls blasted
outwards in a shower of glass and billowing fire.
Schofield slid under Marine One, and found himself lying
next to Libby Gant and Brainiac.
Gunfire echoed out all around them. And then bizarrely,
above the gunshots, Schofield heard a voice booming out
from the hangar's loudspeaker system: "Good luck, Mr.
President, and may God have mercy on your soul."
"Holy shit!" Brainiac yelled.
"This way!" Schofield said, crawling on his stomach
underneath the big helicopter.
He arrived at a wide grille in the floor. It came away easily.
An air vent opened up beneath it. The steel-walled vent
plunged down into the earth, disappearing into darkness.
"Let's go!" Schofield yelled above the gunfire.
Abruptly, a metal panel in the bottom of Marine One
burst open—almost decapitating Schofield—and a figure
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with an M-16 dropped down behind him, the gun leveled at
his forehead.
"Fuck! It's you," Mother said as she lowered herself out
of the helicopter's emergency escape hatch onto the ground.
"Here, happy birthday," she said, tossing an MP-10 machine
pistol to Gant. "Sorry, Scarecrow, nothing for you.
That was all I could find in the basic arms cabinet on board.
There's more in the forward armory, but Gunman's got the
key to that."
"Never mind," Schofield said, "the first thing we've got
to do is get out of here and regroup. Then we have to figure
out a way of taking these bastards down. This way."
"Did you catch any of that shit on the television?"
Mother said as she crawled over to the vent.
Gant and Brainiac climbed down into the vent first,
bracing their legs against its walls, shimmying themselves
down into it.
"No," Schofield said, "I was too busy dodging bullets."
"Then I've got a lot to tell you," Mother said as they
lowered themselves into the shaft.
the president of the united states was moving faster
than he had ever moved before. In fact, his feet barely even
touched the ground.
At the first sight of the 7th Squadron commandos
storming the common room, his nine-man Protective Detail
had thrown itself into action.
Four men immediately took up defensive positions in
between the President and the oncoming assault troops,
throwing their coats open to reveal Uzi submachine guns.
The Uzi's buzzed as they unleashed a brutal wave of gunfire
at a crushing 600 rounds per minute.
The other five members of the Detail crash-tackled the
President out into the nearby fire escape, practically lifting
him off his feet as they gang-rushed him out of the room,
covering his body with their own.
The door to the fire stairs slammed shut behind them,
but not before they saw the 7th Squadron troops clinically
Area 7 83
take up covering positions behind couches, doors and cupboards
and leap-frog each other and
tear to shreds the four
Secret Service men who had remained behind--drowning
out the buzz of their Uzi's with the whirring drone of their
P-90 assault rifles.
The Uzi's might have fired at 600 rounds per minute.
But the P-90, made by the FN Herstal company in Belgium,
fired at an astonishing 900 rounds per minute. Indeed, with
its rounded hand guard, internal blowback system, and incredible
hundred-round magazine mounted above the barrel,
it looked like something out of a science fiction movie.
"Down the stairs! Now!" Frank Cutler yelled as bullets
slammed into the other side of the firedoor. "Head for the alternate
exit!"
The President and what was left of his Detail flew down
the stairs, taking them four at a time, hurling themselves
around every turn. Every one of them had a weapon in his or
her hand now--Uzi's, SIG-Sauers, anything ...
The President himself could do nothing but run with
them, so tightly was he flanked by his bodyguards.
"Advance Team One! Come in!" Cutler yelled into his
wrist microphone as he ran.
No reply.
"Advance Team One! Come in! We are approaching
Exit Point One with Patriot and we need to know if it is
open!"
He received no reply.
UP IN THE MAIN HANGAR, BOOK II WAS IN HELL.
Bullets strafed the floor all around him, glass rained
down on his head.
He was tucked up against the outside of the northern office
with Elvis--in the tiny gap between it and the hangar's
armored door--the two of them having dived out through
the office's bullet-shattered windows a moment before it had
been blasted to smithereens by the Predator missile.
The three ten-man teams of 7th Squadron men were
everywhere, moving with precision and speed, racing around
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the helicopters, leaping over dead men, their guns pressed
against their shoulders, eyes looking straight down the
barrels.
On the other side of the hangar, Book saw the White
House people come streaming out of the southern glass
walled office--about ten people in total--screaming, looking